A Beautiful Dream
by Starlit Skyline
Summary: "Before there was wonder or memories or even hope, there were dreams. Before there was Santa Claus and before there was the Easter Bunny or the Tooth Fairy, there was the Sandman." - Sandy reminisces about his life, his fellow Guardians and how they all came to be.


_AN: Well, I watched the film a few weeks ago and found that I actually quite liked it. Of course, that's when this plot bunny pops out of it's hole and starts chewing on my brain-cells, screaming "Write me! Write me!" Uhm, so yeah. Now it's written. Please enjoy!_

_P.S. I'm not quite sure what to put this as in terms of genre._

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A Beautiful Dream

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**I**

Before there was wonder or memories or even hope, there were dreams. Before there was Santa Claus – or Saint Nicholas or Father Christmas or whatever you choose to call him – and before there was the Easter Bunny or the Tooth Fairy, there was the Sandman.

Sanderson Moonsnoozie, quite the mouthful, he knew. He supposed that was why most people had dubbed him the Sandman, the ancient apparition which brought oblivion to troubled spirits and dreams to hopeful young ones, who still had their entire lives to live out.

Among that lot, he never would have guessed he'd been spending eternity with four of them. North. Toothiana. Bunnymund. Jack. He knew them all even before they had ever heard of him.

He'd seen his fellow Guardians become what they were today, and he'd seen what they were when they were still ordinary humans. He weaved their dreams. He'd seen them grow and mature. He'd see them fulfill their dreams... and give up on just as many.

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**II**

He remembered North before he was North, but a mere burly Russian boy from the outskirts Moscow.

His father had been a soldier, and rarely had he came home – those had been turbulent times, after all. Sandy thought it was inevitable that one day Sergej Kozlov wouldn't come home at all.

Ivan himself, or North in his human rendition, was a short-tempered youth, thinking he was always right. He lived in a village to the North of Moscow and his family owned a good portion of land, which they used for raising and herding goats.

Back then, one would have called young Ivan a ruffian and a baboon. Which, admittedly, he had been.

When a war had broken out and heads had started rolling to the south of the country, Ivan had taken his chance and became a bandit. And a successful one at that, but not cruel – never cruel. He liked to view himself as the Russian version of Robin Hood except, as he'd say centuries later "Russian men are not imagined!" To which Sandy had only cracked a smile.

Sometime later, Ivan had returned to his family home, now his since the death of his parents. For a good while, he lived quite the pleasurable life (or as pleasurable as those times could allow him). Still, there was more to Ivan that just the brute on the surface.

Sandy's perception of young North had been had been proven right when Ivan Kozlov, then in his mid-twenties, had decided to take in a homeless person off the streets, and afterwards the boy's entire family.

He had been fascinated by the family's closeness, by the warmth they shared between them. It was something that had been distinctly lacking in his.

He'd hid the man and his family in the workshop, because none of his few servants would come there and it was at least warm enough so that no one would get frostbite. They were hidden well enough that no one would kick them out for being poverty, for anyone with authority would have assumed they were there only to steel.

Ivan hadn't given it much thought, for his heart was far more influential than his mind.

He died well into his sixties in the Russian snow during a blizzard. For obvious reasons, neither Sandy or North ever spoke of it.

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**III**

He remembers the Australian man, Riley Addison, from his days as a gambler. He'd been impulsive and rash, and was always eager for a good brawl. He HAD always been tittering on the edge of dept. Of course, that had been the time when falling too deep into depth meant death. Riley had somehow always managed to dodge that bullet (a few times even literally).

It had been, for lack of a better word, like the new Wild West and Riley had been like one of those characterizations of glorified-cowboys in western films that would come only a few centuries later.

He had picked fights, but had been chivalrous.

He was always in some sort of dept, yet always yelled out "This round's on me!" when out with friends.

When it came to his words, he was cruelly honest – to a fault, even. Yet he lied to himself every once in a while.

Riley had been a walking contradiction.

He had had great potential to be many things in life, too bad he never got the chance to be any of that.

Riley died during a robbery of the local saloon from a bullet wound he'd taken to protect the random woman who'd been standing next to him. Somehow, Sandy knew Bunnymund didn't regret that decision in the slightest.

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**IV**

There had once been this Asian girl, Lành Quý Trần, who had been the daughter of a traveling merchant. Her father had been to many foreign lands and traveled a lot, and sometimes she would accompany him. She didn't like staying with her mother and little brothers and sisters (she was the oldest) while he was out, seeing the vast world beyond the village their family had taken residence in.

Lành's father often left his wife and seven children alone for months. Still, Lành had loved her father and treasured every letter and present he'd sent their family over the years, even if he had never fulfilled his promise to take her on a journey of a lifetime she wished for all her life.

Sometimes, he was gone so long they'd run out of resources. They worked on the rice farms of their neighbors, but had no land to their name. Often, when draught soiled the earth, they'd go hungry.

That's why, when they hadn't enough money, Lành would steal the money of others – going so far as to sneak into their houses! She'd always been so careful no one had ever caught her.

When her siblings were afraid or unable to sleep, she'd whisper fairy-tales and bedtime stories to them.

She never married, for she was poor and her mother could not find her a suitor no matter how hard she tried. Her father wasn't there to get the job done.

Lahn died of a sickness in her late teens, taking all the memories she so treasured with her.

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**V**

Sandy treasured their memories as if they were his own. Admittedly, that wasn't far from the truth. For no one knows when was it that people first started to dream, it was such a long time ago, no one remembers. Not even Sandy.

That's why, when Jack Frost, newly appointed Guardian, admitted to them that he had no memories of his life before becoming the Spirit of Winter Sandy understood what it was like for the boy. He hadn't said so though, he couldn't have.

He hadn't said to anyone this ever before, because Toothiana's wings would have probably fallen off before she stopped searching for his baby-teeth, for memories that surely didn't even exist anymore.

And he hadn't said anything then, because Jack was the young, misunderstood hero of their little tale – of that, Sandy was certain – and Jack was a Guardian of the Children while still remaining a child.

And in Sandy's mind, protecting the children was the main priority and that included Jack.

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**VI**

It was hard, he couldn't deny it, to fight against Pitch Black. But not because of his hordes of Nightmares or shadowed dreamsand but because, once upon a time, they had been _friends_.

Because Pitch Black was almost as ancient as the Sandman himself.

Because, before there was wonder or memories or even hope there were dreams, but there were also nightmares. You could call them two sides of the same coin, one could not truly exist without the other.

Sandy existed to bring hope for a bright future, even an improbable one (something that would later become the duty of Bunnymund). Sandy was the golden light in the darkness.

Pitch was the opposite. He existed to stifle out hope and point out to the humans just how helpless and hopeless they truly were. How easily ruled by fear, so like him. Arguably, the same could be said for Sandy. He was a dreamer, so much so that sometimes reality escaped him, yet he knew all its boundaries. He was grounded.

Pitch was simply afraid and hopeless.

Together, they had managed to balance each other out. Pitch had given a perspective to Sandy's perception of the world, while Sandy had given Pitch a dream of the future.

It had been good while it had lasted.

It had been almost perfect before they fell divided, opposites that could no longer complete each other.

But before that cosmic rule had been established, there was nothing stopping them from being friends. Their opinions had clashed, sure, sometimes even their morals but there had been some sort of understanding between them, hadn't there?

Maybe he had imagined it all. He did like to see the best in others, after all.

The darkness of the Nightmares consumes him before he could dwell on those thoughts for too long.

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**VII**

There is something beautiful which he can only see with his eyes closed.

It is something he cannot reach.

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**VIII**

It was almost familiar, this feeling of being surrounded by darkness and fear. Almost, because the Sandman hadn't experienced anything like it as long as he could remember. Maybe he did, but was too tired to look for something so faded and ancient, like a far off dream he couldn't recall.

Maybe, these were his foggy memories of a life he'd long forgotten. He thought it was a rather depressing existence, when your only escape is to dream. But what had he dreamed of then? He doesn't know, perhaps he doesn't want to.

He dreams.

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**IX**

There is something beautiful in his sleep he cannot reach while awake.

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**X**

In the end, he can't do it.

At the end of the final battle against Pitch Black, Sandy feels his rage drain away after a few good hits. He was still angry, but before he had been _furious _with Pitch because of what he'd done. Because of all the children he'd used! Because of all of the unneeded terror!

But Pitch was nothing if not the Nightmare King, and he was not crowned so because of his ability to control fear but because he had the most fears of all. And, try as he might, Sandy couldn't stay mad at such a pitiful being for long.

In the end, when Pitch falls to the ground unconscious, Sandy makes sure that his dream is a peaceful, happy one.

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**XI**

Years later, he's back in that cavern again – the one Jack had finally found his memories in and the one that now and would always hold the entity that was the Nightmare King.

The Nightmare steeds whinny and bare their black razor teeth at him, but Sandy does not fear, he only feels pity and sadness – and perhaps even a bit of guilt – whenever he comes here.

"Back again, _old friend?_" the fiend asks and it's voice echoes around the cavernous hole in the ground. Sandy can't even see him from all the darkness swiveling about. "You know I will be free soon. These chains cannot hold me!" the disembodied voice hissed.

_There's nothing holding you down but yourself_, the Sandman wanted to say.

Even though Sandy can't see Pitch, he knows no attack will befall him and no fear would touch him. He had walked this path before and knows where all the booby-traps lay in wait. He had nothing to fear but fear itself.

"And when I do, I'll make your pretty little dreams into the worst possible nightmares!"

_Does that mean you'll turn your own dream in a nightmare again, Pitch?_

Sandy knew that Pitch dreamed of being seen, of being renowned and acknowledged. To be King and to conquer his dreams. That would only happen when his dream overcome his fear.

Sandy was well-aware of the irony of that statement.

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**XII**

Before there was wonder, memories or even hope – there were dreams. The Sandman does not dream, does not slumber and does not have a warm bed to snuggle in and hide away from reality as oblivion takes him. Even he has nightmares.

If he had to guess, he'd say his biggest fear was waking up.

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**XIII**

He does not sleep. He does not slumber. His dream is his reality as well as the other way around.

His dreams are not truly dreams but rather hopes, or wishes maybe. His dreams are not the things he reminisces about when he closes his eyes but perhaps, they are the memories he treasures. His dreams are not the things that provoke wonder and awe in him, rather it is the world around him, the people around him.

To the Sandman, life was a beautiful dream.

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_So, what do you think? Care to share it in a review?_


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